Payments from the European budget should be possible only if the activities they finance respect: social rights, minimum wage, safety at work, occupational safety, health, work-life balance and organisation of working time. This is the new rule included and carried by the Socialists and Democrats to the EU Financial Regulation adopted today at a joint voting session of the committees on budgets and budgetary control of the European Parliament. The principle – known as social conditionality – is a big win for the S&D Group in run-up to the interinstitutional negotiations, which proposed changes to the financial regulation, setting out the rules for how money from the EU budget is spent.

Nils Ušakovs, S&D MEP and EP negotiator on the issue in the EP’s committee on budgets, said:

“Social conditionality was a top priority for our Group when negotiating the changes to the financial regulation with other political groups in the European Parliament. High social standards are indispensable in a union of values, and we are deeply convinced EU money should fund programmes and activities if they respect collective labour agreements and working conditions, as well as the conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

“I am happy our Group built a strong majority for the vote at committee level, and we will work hard to keep it for the adoption of the mandate for interinstitutional negotiations in plenary of the European Parliament.”

Claudiu Manda, MEP and S&D negotiator on the issue in the EP’s committee on budgetary control, said:

“We expected a better proposal for the new rules on how EU money is spent under the financial regulation. What the European Commission put on the table was not what we had hoped for, including regarding the European Parliament's ability to oversee compliance with spending regulations.

“European citizens put their trust in the European Parliament to exercise budgetary control – and the bureaucratic approach to limit the EP’s role is not acceptable. We, the Socialists and Democrats, have put in a huge effort and I am happy we have considerably improved the financial regulation on many matters, including social conditionality and budgetary control.”